FO4 - One armed bandit
by The Whiterose Chronicals
Summary: Jason, a kid with a chem problem and a deathwish hunts Deathclaws. When a massive Deathclaw attacks the Sole Survivor -Male- and his group of followers, he goes above and beyond to save them. After, he becomes the One Armed Bandit. -Rated M for mature language and themes-
1. Chapter 1

Fallout 4

Danse, MaCreedy, Piper and I were travelling together trying to get to Sanctuary. It had been a while since we'd left Diamond city. However, we weren't travelling for very long as we began to hear certain things, twigs cracking being one of them.

"Hear that?" Danse looked at the ridge above us, aiming his laser rifle at it vaguely, looking for a stalker.

"Yeah..." MacCready also aimed at the ridge.

Suddenly we heard a roar, something that I'd heard before.

"It's a deathclaw." I breathed, remembering my previous encounter with one.

Danse was the only one of us in power armour, even so, I began to think that this wouldn't be as bad a fight as I imagined. Suddenly we heard gunfire, someone was taking the fight to the deathclaw.

"Looks like we might not be needing to waste any ammo." Piper chimed.

It was then that we saw a figure being thrown off of the ridge onto the road a few feet in front of us, a trail of blood following him. His coat had been shredded by the deathclaw, along with his left arm by the looks of things. He had two 10mm pistols in his hands, he scrambled to his feet, groaning as he did so.

"Are you alright?" Piper almost freaked out as he got up.

 **Thump**

The deathclaw had jumped down onto the road, a tomahawk was lodged in its head. It gave a roar, loud enough for the nearby settlement to hear.

"Fuck's sake." The figure groaned before proceeding to fill the deathclaw's face full of lead.

Unfortunately, he ran out of bullets soon enough. The deathclaw looked at him bemused, it lashed out at him to which he narrowly dodged the claws of the beast. We had to do something, so we all began to fill the beast's back full of lead and lasers. As our magazines and batteries ran out, the beast looked over its shoulder at us. A red glow in its eye.

"Reload, now." Danse ordered.

When I began, the beast began to charge but was halted by a 44 magnum slug in it's back. It stopped and turned around to have the figure lunge into the beast's front. A few seconds later, the beast fell to it's back, the figure's left arm stuck in its mouth.

He was practically howling in pain. Struggling to get his arm out of the beast's mouth, the problem was that the beast was still not dead, it was still trying to chew the figure's arm off. The figure put his foot on the horn of the beast before emptying his revolver into its head.

"Fuckin' things." He growled before throwing the revolver away and trying to pry his arm out of the mouth.

Quickly I moved over and helped prize the beast's mouth wide open. When the mouth was open, I found that the figure's arm was stuck in the teeth of the beast. After more blood and more struggling, the figure retrieved his arm and stumbled back.

"Th-thanks." He thanked me before falling over his feet, onto the beast again.

"What did you do?" I asked.

"D-deathclaws are strong on the outside. If you are trying to kill them, you need to get them from the inside. You can rig up a dead body with remote charges to blow them up, that wasn't an option now. So I tried shoving a grenade down his throat. Only I didn't get the pin out before it chomped my arm." He spoke, reaching for his mask with his right hand.

The mask was a respirator, helping him breathe the air around him. He must have thought he was too far gone to need it anymore.

"Are you insane? You could have been killed." Danse challenged the man, who now looked younger than he did.

The kid proceeded to take off his hood and goggles, bright blue eyes that were now gleaming with tears in his eyes.

"If I hadn't, I would have died and the beast would have lived... Then again, you guys could have done it... I'm a fucking idiot." He winced, looking at his left hand.

There wasn't much of it left. In fact, his arm was barely attached to his arm anymore. Yet he was still bleeding quite profusely. He reached into his coat and pulled out a cigarette and lighter and put it in his mouth then lit it.

"I don't think that's going to help." Piper came over and crouched down to him.

"Look at him Piper, I don't think he's got long left." Mcreedy.

"Don't worry about me. Shit, I didn't have long left anyway." He began to wipe his eyes as he smoked the cigarette.

"What's your name?" I asked, trying to keep him talking whilst I rummaged for a spare stimpack in my coat.

He looked at all of us quizzically, not really understanding what it was that we were doing. He didn't realize that we were trying to help him, I guessed that he'd never had someone help him before. Mcreedy took up the initiative and came to his left side.

"Boss, if he's gonna make it. The arm has to go, it's beyond saving." He spoke quietly.

"There are tools in my kit if you wanna use those. Honestly, though. I've lost a few more pints than I've got to lose." The figure began again, blowing smoke away from us.

"Stop, you're gonna make it kid." I calmed him as I unclipped his bag from his torso.

The tools he was referring to; were a saw, a med-x stim, bandages and a disinfectant pad. A bottle of whiskey was also there for him.

"Uh... You're gonna have to do that boss." MacCreedy began to look pale.

"Paladin, could you hold his arm for me?" I asked.

Danse agreed, swapped places with MacCreedy and took the figure's arm.

"Can you feel anything in this arm?" He tried.

"No." The figure began, before throwing the cigarette away from him and taking the whiskey.

He took a swig before pouring some of it on the area where the wound was the worst. As he began to look relieved, I apologized and began to saw into his arm. He never even moved, but the saw made a grinding noise as it ripped through his arm and the bone.

Behind me I could hear Piper trying to help MacCreedy with his retching, it was distracting, to say the least. Finally, the saw had gone through and his arm was off.

The figured hadn't even flinched.

"How did you not feel anything?" I asked as I quickly began to take off the upper part of his clothing.

"I've lost a lot of blood. That stim reduced the pain and stopped the bleeding. That and I'm high as fuck." The figure reached for the med-x.

I swatted his hand and used the bandages to fix the pad to his shoulder. It took a while but the bleeding managed to slow down enough to the point where he could be saved after rest.

"You never answered my question." I tried again as I draped his coat over him and closed it up.

"Jason... Your friend is hurting my arm." He chuckled at Danse.

Danse was still holding the severed arm, inspecting the flesh.

"I'm checking if you're a synth, it doesn't look so. These marks are strange though, I haven't seen this before." Danse explained as I helped Jason up.

MacCreedy had trouble recovering himself, but he collected Jason's fallen weapons before he helped us get back to sanctuary. When we began to get in sight of the town, the kid began to drift off. Danse was the one to take up the initiative and picked up the kid and put him on his shoulder.

"Blue, I'm proud of you for helping him. I don't he'd deserve to die out here." She praised me.

"Piper, I think either way he'll die." MacCreedy sighed.

"I still hear you." Jason groaned on the back of Danse.

Eventually, we reached Sanctuary. My old home, my first settlement. A place we hadn't visited in a while, I'd hope Curie hadn't walked away and gone somewhere else. Thankfully, she had stayed put, our only medic who could deal with a botched amputation.

I took him into one of the houses that we set up for medical operations. Danse quickly set Jason down onto the bed and Curie took a quick look at Jason before making a conclusion.

"I will be able to save him, but it will take time." She explained as she delicately removed the clothes he was loosely wearing.

"He protected us from a deathclaw when he could have run Curie, please make sure he survives." I smiled at her, knowing that she would be able to do it.

She nodded and continued to focus on Jason. Everyone walked out, knowing that she worked better when she was alone. MacCreedy was still looking pale.

"I still can't believe you did that without even thinking. What if she could have saved his arm?" He seemed pretty angry.

"MacCreedy, you saw his arm. It made you sick just looking at it, it was barely flesh and bone anymore. If it was kept attached, it would have been infected, he would have died." Danse took my side, I knew full well that the kid's chance of survival was slim if he hadn't had the amputation.

"He said it himself, he wanted to die out there. We saved his life Mac, he saved ours... If not, a ton of ammo." Piper also spoke out.

All of a sudden, we heard a yell of pain. Jason's high appeared to be wearing off, he was feeling the pain now.

"I hope that doesn't go on the rest of the day." I frowned, knowing that the settlers wouldn't like to hear the pained screams for long.

We settled down and began to make think about our next move. I knew that it was the institute that had kidnapped Shaun, the problem was how I was going to destroy the institute and find Shaun. I didn't mind synths themselves, giving them they're own life would be a job for the railroad, but they didn't have the resources like the Brotherhood had, and the minutemen would take far too long to help out. I didn't have time to waste, Shaun was out there, and Kellog made sure that I knew that before I scalped him with my shotgun.

Brotherhood was sounding better and better, each point that came up sounded so good that I couldn't find another solution.

Before long, we all tried to get some sleep, but we found it difficult seeing as it was difficult seeing as we were almost deafened by the silence of the night.

 **The next morning - Jason**

I woke up lying in the homemade bed inside a house which looked as though it had been professionally repaired by someone. The pain from my left side was numb, but it was still there, with each second I could feel painkillers and their effects wearing off slowly.  
Carefully, I sat up on the bed, trying to support myself with my left arm.

Unfortunatly, it wasn't there to support me. My weight came crashing down on the edge of the bed, rolling me off it and onto my face on the cold but clean floor. The pain spiked for a few moments as I breathed through gritted teeth, not only dealing with the missing arm, but the piercing headache I was dealing with. As it subsided, I pulled myself to my feet with a mission in mind.

Get a cigarette.

My coat was dangling on a hook outside, near the window. It looked as though it had been cleaned and had been left outside to dry. The same couldn't be said about the clothes I was wearing, they were filthy. Either way, the coat's belongings were set out on the table in the front room.

I walked slowly, trying to get my bearings with the loss of an arm shifting my balance quite a bit. I reached the table and quickly fiddled with the packet of cigarettes with my one hand so I could get a cigarette out. I placed it in my mouth and lit it with the slowly dying lighter I'd been carrying for a while.

After wandering outside, I sat down on the steps, leaning against the rail to keep myself upright for as long as I could.

The sweet release that came from the tobacco dampened my headache a little, but did nothing to help with my left arm being hacked off and coming down from the high I was on.

To be honest, it was a break for me. I learned something very important from that fight, shoving a grenade down anything's throat was a bad idea. Especially when you make them yourself.

Either way, my combat effectiveness had been halved. My dual-wielding phase had been cut short, as had my sniping skill. It seemed as though I was going to have to figure out a way to reload with only one hand. Holding a bulky 10mm between my teeth wasn't the best way to retain it whilst trying to shove a magazine in it. I was wondering about holstering it then loading, however, the revolver was going to be a problem.

As was the rifle, how could I use a bolt action with one hand? It was my favorite gun, and that axe was my favorite blade. Couldn't use them now.

"Garcon? How long have you been awake?" The lady had come outside to see me.

"Not long, thank you for this. I mean it." I smiled at her.

She returned the smile, but noticed the cigarette.

"You do know that smoking cigarettes is a leading cause of lung cancer and to other serious illnesses, no?" She asked, sitting down next to me.

"I know... Can I ask you something? What happened to my arm, will it take a few years off me?" I worried.

"Judging by my data collection of the wasteland, it could, but be positive, this experience should teach you not to take a fight that you cannot win without serious wounds." She tried to cheer me up.

I took another drag of the cigarette before I considered throwing the pack away, I had worse vices than cigarettes, besides the pain was starting to become unbearable. That was of course unless I could find my med-x stim.

"How is the pain?" The French medic was trying to get me to talk.

"It's bad, besides it's only been a few hours. It's strange not having my left arm, so much I could do, I can't do it now." I looked longingly at the stub on my shoulder.

Bandages still gracing the missing limb.

"Yes, but you will find new ways of getting through the day. Believe me." She tried comforting me.

She could try, but no words would stop my pain.

I saw a man walk out of another building, I thought that he was something else, the man in the power armor. He came over to us.

"Curie, how is the patient?" He asked.

"He is recovering well, but he says the pain hasn't subsided, this is worrying." She replied.

The man sat down on the other side of me, sizing me up from head to toe.

"You fought well back there, I didn't think kids your age had it in you to take on raiders, let alone deathcalws." He commented with a smile.

"Is that supposed to be a compliment?" I raised an eyebrow.

"I've never lost a limb. Proctor Ingram lost both her legs and she doesn't feel any pain anymore, she uses power armor to get around." He stayed serious.

"Oui, there are solutions to your predicament. Do you have any family? A place to live?" Curie asked.

I chuckled as I blew smoke again.

"I was raised in Goodneighbour. A couple of Ghouls took care of me, other than that no family alive. As for where I live." I explained.

I pointed at the road.

"That's where I live. The road." I smiled.

"That's quite a life for someone so young. Do you want to talk about what happened?" the soilder asked.

"When I was about 9, I was branded by the slavers. Something came over me, I was so pissed I went on a rampage. They always promised us freedom when we did enough work, being branded meant you were owned, I knew that... So I killed them all, that's when I wandered the wastes. I went all around." I explained.

Just talking about the branding made me look for my left arm, but it wasn't there anymore. The branding was gone, the past was the past.

"Normally I am against murder, but slavery is a more heanous thing." Curie spoke.

"Monsuire Danse, what do you think we should do with the boy?" She continued.

"He's resilliant, perhaps he could be a valuable asset to the brotherhood." He began

"I've already tried the brotherhood, they took me in as a squire when I helped out one of their patrols. They tried to teach me the way of the brotherhood, but I was freinds with Ghouls." I explained.

"I see, perhaps this could be changed once you've met a few ferals." Danse nudged me.

"I've met ferals, but those aren't the people I know. Ferals loose their way, once they are away from civiliasation they begin deterorating. It's lonliness and depression that turns a Ghoul feral Danse." I stopped smiling, glaring at Danse.

The other guy appeared from no-where, he stood in front of the sun. With no way of blowing the smoke away, I stubbed the cigarette out and kept the rest of it for later. He looked very familar, he'd come from Goodneighbour like me.

"MaCreedy... Still a merc?" I joked with him.

He then looked at me closely until he realised who I was.

"I figured you looked familliar, no-one else is crazy enough to take on a death claw." Mac smiled at me.

I chuckled, knowing that he was the kind of person who was as crazy as I was. Only he wasn't crazy enough to actually go looking for a fight with a death claw.

"So, Jason. The wandering's come to an end for you?" He joked light-heartedly.

"Looks like it, might have to go back to Goodneighbour... Speaking of familliar faces, how long have you been a part of the Brotherhood?" I turned to Danse.

"I was a boy when I first joined the Brotherhood. Why?" He asked.

Danse looked familiar, now I knew why. When I first escaped from the slavers, the Brotherhood took me in. They made me a squire, but I never stayed for long.

"Knew you looked familliar... I ran away from the Airport a while ago." I began to speak with him again.

Danse looked at me for a while, before figuring that it was time to speak again.

"I remember now. You couldn't get used to laser rifles no matter how hard we tried. We berated you for it, but I can see that you've managed fine with normal bullets. Of course apart from the recent amputation." Danse apologised.

MaCreedy laughed heartilly.

"Bullets aint why he lost his arm, home-made grenades being shoved down a deathclaw's throat was the reason." He chuckled.

I couldn't help but chuckle with him, I was stupid to think that making my own grenades was a good idea in the first place. Looking back, I couldn't understand why I did it. It was about this time that the woman came out, someone I also recognised.

"Piper." I greeted, finally picking myself up from the ground.

"Oh, I should have recognised your face." She instantly recognised who I was.

She'd written something in a paper about me.

"Does everyone know you kid? How does Piper know you?" MaCreedy was surprised.

"He snuck around all over Diamond City." Piper lowered her voice to a dramatic tone.

I found it hard to stifle a chuckle but I did my best seeing as that she would want this story to be heard.

"One night, when most of the security guards were asleep. He broke his way into the printing building." He explained.

"Why?" Danse seemed confused.

"He noticed that the press was broken, so he decided to fix it. Instead of just leaving it there, he didn't steal a thing, no. He loaded up a news story onto the terminal all about him with a picture of the landscape of Quincy, the headline was 'Boy climbs the Quincy bridge and bags deathclaw from 200 yards' on the front page. When I woke up, I distibuted the papers thinking that there was nothing different. People started coming up to me and asking about the hunter, then I saw him trying to fix Takahashi to speak properly by speaking in the same language." She told the story.

"Wait. How many Deathclaws have you killed?" Danse asked, standing up.

"Just two. Besides, I think Tak was the harder task. Even when you speak at him in Mandarin or Japanese, he doesn't respond." I chuckled

"Yeah, there's only so many times that you can hear Nini-ni-shimoska before you think about shooting the thing. Anyway, I asked him if he knew who this hunter was and he bolted out of the city right away, laughing as he did. Nice to see you've matured a little bit." She tried scolding my behaviour, but it never worked.

I laughed at her, she knew that I meant well with what I did, but it didn't change the fact that I'd wasted a lot of her paper doing that.

"You speak Chinese?" Danse pressed.

"Not much, I can understand it better than speak it, even so it's not something that I do regularly. People get jumpy when they hear someone who looks like I do speak chinese, they think I'm a chinese revenant with the mask on. Speaking of which..." I began to remember that my mask was missing from my clothing.

"I have taken the liberty to improve your breathing so that you would no longer need the mask. Besides the mask is insightly no?" Curie put a hand on my shoulder.

"I didn't think so, well thank you for that anyway. Is there anything else that you'd like to tell me you did to me?" I asked, wondering what else that she had done to me.

"I have amputated the arm further up to the shoulder so that you should feel a little bit more comfortable. Not only that, but I have also treated the rash in your geni-" Curie began.

"Alright, that's enough." I halted her before she finished.

"Been having a fling eh?" MaCreedy nudged me.

"Hey, for all you know it could have been a rusty stim I took... Stim." I looked back into the house and saw my bag.

Quickly I rushed for the bag, but I was grabbed by Danse who realised what I was looking for. He seemed pretty pissed about it.

"I knew it, he's addicted to med-x. Why else would he have had that junk with him?"

"Give it to me, I'm in fucking agony!" The walls began to fall as Danse wrestled with me to stop me going for the bag.

MaCreedy took pity on me and decided to try and help.

"Jase, that stuff's only going to slow you down. Trust me, that's the last thing you need right now." He tried but to no avail.

The more I fought against Danse the more the wound hurt. The gentle release that that stim would have provided me with would have saved me a lot of pain. Eventually, I gave up when I realized that I was going to start bleeding almost immediately.

"Fuck, could have used that right about now." I fell to my knees to try and regain my strength.

Curie decided to try and help me up, but my legs had lost almost all of their strength. Not a good sign.

"Why don't you try and subdue the pain with actual painkillers rather than Chems?" She asked.

"He makes them himself, I remember seeing his lab in Goodneighbour. Apparently, they aren't as bad as the raider stuff, but never the less still not worth the withdrawal symptoms." Mac explained the deal to Curie.

"It doesn't matter who makes the damn things, it's below people like us." Danse sighed.

"Jesus..." I tried to get back up, but to no avail.

I needed that stim more than I needed them talking down to me. Nothing stopped me trying to get to the bag, even when Danse grabbed my leg I kicked him off and scrambled to the bag where I knew I'd hidden one. Within seconds of grabbing the bag, the stim was in my hand.

I rolled onto my back and tried to jab myself in the leg with it, however, the leader of the group had appeared and grabbed my wrist. He didn't stop me though, the urge was too strong, but so was he. I couldn't fight against his strength, but I did have a plan. As he pulled me, I came up with him allowing me to jab my leg into the stim and hit the plunger.

"Damnit!" He practically kicked himself as he realized what he'd done.

MaCreedy

Jase had jabbed himself with the needle and gone on to roar with new found strength. I'd hoped the pain had faded away for him, that wasn't the end of it though.

"Fuckin'... Oh fuck." He stumbled as he took out the stim.

"Mac, what's happened to him?" Piper knocked me with her elbow.

"He's topped his high up. I guess that stim wasn't what he thought it was." I theorized.

It was true that Jase was experiencing something he wasn't expecting. Judging by the fact that he made them himself, it wasn't a long shot to assume that instead of Med-x he'd given himself a Psycho stim.

"What was that?" Boss shook Jase by the shoulders.

"Psyc-et... This isn't good... Why's my arm got a deathclaw's hand on it? I fucking hate deathclaws!" Jase began to feel his high not going the way it should.

"Psycho and Jet mixed together... Hell of a way to get sick." Piper sighed.

"Tell me about it, he's going to be out of it for a while." I held in a snicker as Jase was trying to rip off an imaginary arm.

"Don't laugh at this, give me that rope." Danse ordered, pointing at the rope around my chest.

I handed the bundle of rope to him and he went straight into the house and grabbed Jase by the shoulders.

"Come with me, I know where there's a deathclaw you can kill." He lied.

Jase went with him, practically growling and gritting his teeth whilst looking at the imaginary arm. He was livid and that's not going lightly, his eyes were going red with anger. I knew exactly what Danse was doing. Honestly, it was the best thing that he could do for Jase at this moment.

"Mac, what's he doing?" Boss asked.

"Well he's going to tie him to a pole or something, wait for the drugs to wear off. Best we can do seeing as he's drugged up. Should take a couple of hours, then the pain will get worse." I explained.

"Why'd he do it then? He knows it'll get worse." He pressed.

"Ever lost an arm? He's confused and in pain, that will get worse. He's trying to compensate for that pain, but trying to do it quickly, he's trapped in that cycle. It's best to cold turkey him for now until he's fine." I tried to make it the simplest I could.

Boss never really thought much of the chems, he never took them, he never even looked at them. One thing was for sure though, Jase being tied to that pole wasn't going to go down.

 **1 hour later**

An hour later I decided to ditch the work and see how Jase was doing, thankfully he was still there even though he was trying to rip the bonds with his teeth.

"Jase, it's for your own good." I smiled, trying to get him to do the same.

No avail though, he was shaking like some sort of wild animal.

"It's burning, it burns!" He yelled at me.

"It will burn kid, you've been here before." I tried comforting him.

I noticed just how much he'd been struggling with the bonds. There were groves in the dirt where his heels had slipped in the dirt at least a foot deep, the rope was beginning to fray at some parts.

"How did you think this was going to go down?" I tapped him on the shoulder.

"Good." He growled, his head rolling on his shoulders.

"Good, good ,good, good. No bad. Bad. Burns!" He began rambling, even more so.

To be honest Jase would be like this through the night if not more, trying to cold turkey someone who'd just taken drugs was a hard thing to do. I had hope though seeing as this wouldn't be the first time this happened.

I left Jase alone, he was too stressed out and needed to be alone, if I was to piss him off without even trying he could destroy that rope and run off. It was no surprise that whilst we were planning our next move, Jase had broken out of his bonds, grabbed his gear and hauled ass away. We never even noticed he'd left until about 2 hours later when we went to look for him, the only thing he left behind was the rope and a blood splatter across the ground.

"Idiot, you let him get away." Danse slapped the back of my head.

"Hey, if I remember correctly it was you that tied him up. Maybe if you hadn't tied him up in the first place." I argued.

"Shouldn't really matter, I mean he'd just be weighing us down after all." Boss began.

"Blue, he's a kid, with one arm for crying out loud. We've got to go after him." Piper piped up.

 **Jason**

I wasn't in that much pain, so I managed to pick up a brisk pace. Getting away from the town was the best thing that I could do for myself. The 'holier than thou' vibe with that group wasn't my style, besides my life didn't belong to them. If I couldn't live my life as who I was, that wasn't a life I wanted to lead.

Goodneighbour was always affectionate towards people who knew their way around Chems and explosives. Fortunately I was both, unfortunately, I didn't think I'd be in the business for much longer. Instead of sticking to roads, I stuck to the off-road track so that my movements couldn't be followed easily, either by wildlife or the group who'd rescued me.

I'd been on the way for about 2 hours and still standing, losing the arm hadn't diminished my trekking skills. It would be a pain not being able to climb. However, I'd find a way to stay on the right path, keep my head above the water.

Finally, I reached Goodneighbour, the door opened allowing me to slide into the place. However it was not convenient for anyone, something was going down.

Goodneighbour was still filled with rubble, litter and lowlifes. Thankfully for me, I was adjusted to this. Something else was wrong, people were gathered around, someone was selling something. So I did my best to get into the crowd in the courtyard of the town. Once again, this guy was back selling 2nd-grade drugs to the people of Goodneighbour, but this time he had something new.

"Gentlemen, here I've got something that'll give you the edge in the fight should you ever need it. Here you go!" He held something in the air.

"Med-co! A blend of Med-x and Psycho. Only 100 caps." He advertised.

Someone had been trying out my recipes, now I didn't really care as it was Hancock who'd taught me how to brew them, I couldn't do that anymore. Either way, making the blends were dangerous. I didn't care if a few raiders OD'd on the stuff.

Suddenly though, a hand hit me on the shoulder turning me around. Hancock was stood there.

"You and I need to have a little talk, later though." He barely spoke to me.

He walked up to the guy and began to talk to him. There was a little bit a of a rule in Goodneighbour, but you can sell drugs in Goodneighbour as a caravan, but a percentage of your earnings go to Hancock, most people agreed as it was one of the only places that you could freely trade chems without having to deal with do-gooders or raiders.

As soon as the conversation started civilly, it turned to shit as the salesman didn't want to pay Hancock the money, nor did he want to leave Goodneighbour. So Hancock wanted to oblige him.

"Kid, come here." He looked at me.

So I walked into the clearing.

"Give him a _permanent_ place to stay." He ordered.

Without listening to the guy's pleads, I drew my pistol and put one in each kneecap so that he was in extreme pain. I let him scream for a few seconds before shooting him the head.

Silence.

Hancock decided to take the proceeds from the body and give them to me.

"Your lab was raided, I was wondering where they'd gone. Come on." He directed me towards the office.

He took me into the building and up to his office in complete silence. He let me go in first and then followed me then locked the door behind me. He was angry, even I could see it.

"Go on, take the weight off your feet." He invited me to sit down.

So I did, when Hancock was angry it was best you do as you were told.

"What happened to your arm?" He pressed.

Lying wasn't worth it.

"A deathclaw attacked a group of people, a big deathclaw. So I figured if it's not me it's going to be them. I tried throwing a grenade down its throat. It grabbed my arm and well..." I began, then decided that showing him would be the best idea.

I took off the coat in order to show him exactly what had happened to my arm. It had healed decently, but the fact remained that the Hancock would have found it hard to believe seeing as I'd had some medical attention.

"Wait. You tried saving a group of people?" He asked.

"Uh huh" I nodded.

"Hm... Let me see." He came over to me to take a look at what was left of my arm.

He was staring at the stitches, looking over the problem.

"So you did, stupid kid. Could have killed yourself." He scolded me.

"That was the point, they couldn't take that thing, it was like 15ft tall. If not for me there'd be a few more amputees out here. Besides, it's taught me one thing." I started.

"What?" He asked.

"Throw the grenade in the mouth of the thing, not feed it to it." I joked with him.

Hancock looked at me in doubt, he thought that I was putting on a brave face. So, if I were to simply break down in front of him, he wouldn't be surprised exactly.

"Listen, I'm... OK, I lost my arm. You know that, but I thought seeing as you've dealt with turning into a ghoul, maybe you could tell me how you dealt with it." I pondered.

"Listen, you made a big fucking mistake challenging a deathclaw. I made a mistake taking that chem, but there's a big difference. I got high off that, limbs still attached... well apart from that toe. You know what I mean, but how the hell can I relate to losing an entire arm? You need to learn how to use that arm more than ever, but let me tell you something, it's going to take a while before you even get close to being able to back out there." Hancock began a monologue.

When Hancock did this, it was best to listen. His words of wisdom were worth more than people say they are.

"You need help, those chem cocktails you've been enjoying for this long, it's gotta stop. As much as I hate to say it, it's slowing you down. Keep going with it, you're going to end up a husk." He explained the situation to me.

"I'll destroy my stills, then the stash. Better no-one gets hold of it." I agreed with him.

"Then you've gotta learn how to do the things you used to be able to do all over again. Once you're back in the swing of things, you can go back out there. But if I were you, I'd be on the lookout for Nick Valentine, he can give you a job on the lowdown, get you back in the ass-kicking swing of things. Right now I'll be with you every step of the way." Hancock comforted me.

When Hancock did this, everything looked up in the world. Soon, I would be on my feet, ready to kick ass.


	2. Chapter 2

**F04 - C2**

 **-_- Yeah that's the face I made when writing this, I didn't make Jason's past evident in the last chapter and didn't leave many clues, I suppose this is why I'm supposed to proof read. Anyway, enjoy!**

 **Hopefully...**

 **David**

After Jason had gone missing, we decided to divert your attention to finding him. Much to Danse's dismay, he hated the idea of going after someone who clearly didn't want our help. That and he was a junkie, but Piper wouldn't give up on Jason, neither would I or Mac.

"Listen, I propose that we split our efforts, but it's not going to be easy seeing as you Danse can't be bothered to help out a kid in need. So Danse it's up to you what you do from here on out, we're going for him." I confronted Danse the minute he hit Mac.

Danse just looked at me suprised, like he completly disagreed, but he gave up.

"Fine, we'll find him." He sighed.

"No point, he'll be in goodneighbour. Give it a day." Mac shrugged his shoulders.

Curie piped up.

"The garcon will not survive long in the wasteland alone, if you go you must go now." She near cried.

"She's right boss. There's not far he can go without having to rest, he'll end up being jumped." Piper pushed us.

"Fine, we'll head out." I began to sigh like Danse did.

 **Jason - The Next Morning**

I woke up on Hancock's couch, I ended up trying to scratch my head with my left hand as if it was still there. It was strange, I thought the whole thing was a dream, seeing the nub just above where my left elbow used to be was scary, but it reminded me of my stupidity and why I needed to destroy the stills.

"You awake?" Hancock walked in holding a flask and a needle.

"Just, this is going to take some getting used to." I struggled to get up but I managed it.

"Yeah, well whilst you've been sleeping I cleaned out your place of chems, kept a few for myself though." He admitted to pocketing a few of my more mild chems.

"You're welcome to them, it least then I know where some of them are." I spoke as I wiped my face with my hand.

I felt like throwing myself in the river to clean some of the dust and grime off of my body, not to mention my clothes. They were in such a state that I thought about burning them, instead I decided to ask Hancock something.

"I never asked you this, understand?" I stared at him, making sure that he got the point.

"What? Spit it out." He seemed intrigued.

"What's the best place to get clean?"

I could see the smirk, then the puffing in his cheeks. Then came the raukus laughter. Something I hated when he did, something that pissed off everyone.

"Sorry kid, but I don't get asked that much. If I were you, just jump in the river an rub abraxo cleaner all over you. That's what most people do." He chuckled away.

"Yeah very funny." I sighed, getting up from the couch and stretching out.

As soon as I began to walk away, Hancock had to stop me.

"Where do you think you're going?" He spoke.

"Washing these clothes, what do you think I'm doing?" I tried not to snap, but my patience was wearing thin.

All he did was hold up his hands and went back to doing whatever he did as Mayor.

So I went out and walked through the streets of Goodneighbour trying to avoid as much attention as possible. The streets were cleaner, but they still had a bad smell lingering around them, not to mention the kind of people you really didn't want to meet in a dark alley. Eventually I ended up at my place, a relativly small apartment above the memory den.

I made my way through the classy place without drawing much attention, I guessed word had spread around as it was best not to agrivate me when I was upset. So I went up the stairs into the apartments, I unlocked the door.

The place was dark and was looking much cleaner since Hancock had brought the stills out of the city. Dropping the bag and shutting the door, I decided to look around a few of the drawers and see if I had any replacement clothes. The only stuff that was relativly clean was my shirt and vest that I wore when I was dealing with people who'd rather talk than shoot. Which was why it was clean, there werent that many kinds of people. I wanted to keep them as far away from my body as possible.

I decided it was time to make a decicsion.

 **David**

We were close to Goodneighbour but we came across a river bank. On it was a back-pack that looked identical to the one that Jason had on when we found him. I seemed to be the only one who picked up on it. Quickly I crouched down to it then I noticed the wet clothes hanging on the tree close by, missing their left sleeves.

"Guy's these are his clothes, he should be around here somewhere!" I called out to the others who had paid no notice.

They just turned and looked at me.

"What?" I asked.

The silence was broken by the sound of a hammer being cocked. Slowly, I turned my head to see Jason in the river, pointing that 44 magnum at me. That was until he realised who I was.

"Didn't think anyone came this way." He spoke quietly.

The others came here as he lowered the hammer and tossed the revolver out of the water. He was close to naked.

"What I wouldn't give for a camera right now." Piper laughed.

The others joined in with the laughter, not really Danse though, he thought the whole thing was relativly normal. Jason climed out of the water and onto the bank, he pulled out a cigarette from his bag and lit it with a match he retrieved from the bag too.

"What brings you here looking for me? Then again, I do owe you one." He began smoking.

"You're damn right, you ran off from the people who helped you out. You owe us more than one." Danse confronted him.

"I was high on a chem cocktail, hyped up on meds already, stressed out from loosing an arm and convinced that my arm was turning into a deathlaw's. What would you do?" Jase just chuckled at Danse.

He took a look at his clothes and realised that they were dry enough to put on, so he got up and reached to grab them.

"Don't think I'm helping you put those on." Mac laughed.

Jase didn't listen, but he started with the shirt, but he couldn't manage the buttons.

"Look, if you need help, just ask." Piper began to take pity on him.

"That's another reason I suppose. Here, hold this for me." He showed me the cigarette, I took it.

He was managing well enough without help to do it, he used his teeth to help him do up the shirt, but it was kind of painful to watch. Before long he was dressed, managing to do it without much trouble but eventually he looked ready to get on the road again.

"I've got something to do, you might enjoy watching it. Come on." He finally struggled with the laces on his boots and tightened them up, he was on the move.

"Wait, we came all this way to find you, yet you still want to do what you want. Why are we bothering with you?" Danse began.

"Because I'm one of the most interesting people you're going to meet in your life. I've got stories for you. First though, you'll really want to see this."

He picked up his bag and hoisted it up over his shoulder. Without saying another word, he walked away and got on the road. Everyone looked around at each other, we were dumb struck. As we looked at each other, Jason snuck back and took the cigarette out of my hand.

"You coming?" He asked and put the cigarette in his mouth.

We began following him, but we kept our wits about us.

"Shit." He turned around and looked back at where he was bathing.

"What?" Danse snapped.

"My revolver, were is it?" He franticaly patted himself down.

Mac walked to Jason and slid the revovler into the holster stitched into his coat.

"Next time, keep track of your gear." He patted Jason on the shoulder.

We continued down the road until we came across a heap of junk. Jason stopped in his tracks, staring at the pile of junk, next to it was a molotov cocktail, not lit or anything. He simply stared at it.

We also stared at it, MacCreedy seemed to know what it was.

"Is that what I think it is?" He asked, somewhat shocked.

Jason nodded.

"My stills... All the chems I made with this stuff, the poison I unleased on the commonwealth. Look at it..." He sighed, taking the cigarette out which was now barely a stump then put it back in his mouth.

He then picked up the cocktail and lit the fuse with the stump then spat it out.

"It doesn't wipe clean the slate, but it stops me from doing it anymore." He said finally before throwing the bottle at the stills.

It caused a blaze bigger than what we could have imagined, there must have been chemicals left inside the bottles, not to mention the fact that there were still some flamable chemicals left around.

Jason stared at the blaze, alarmingly close to the blaze. We didn't understand what was going through the mind of the young chemist. It must have been like his entire life going up in flames in front of him.

Mac decided that being a freind of Jason, he'd comfort him. Not in the way I expected, Jason lowered his goggles over his eyes, that was Mac's que. Quickly he walked over to him and pulled him into a hug. It didn't seem as though he was crying, but I knew better than to doubt it.

The blaze began to rise, getting even hotter and more intoxicating.

Mac guided Jason away from the blaze to be safe, but Jason still wanted to look at the blaze. However I began to realise something, Danse was beginning to understand something, no matter the kind of person he seemed, there was something different. He wasn't this chem dealing heartless raider, he was human.

The moment was kind of ruined by Piper scribbling in her notebook. I noticed this and just looked at her, scribbling away.

"Piper." I whispered over the slow cracking of the glass.

She looked up and caught Danse and I looking at her disaprovingly.

"Sorry it's just such a good story I can't pass up on the oppertunity." She tried to justify herself.

After a couple of minutes, Jason had brought himself around and managed to get back into the swing of things, he'd put the past behind him.

"I don't know about you, but I'm glad he didn't throw the grenade ingerdients in that pile." He joked, weakly.

"Shall we get moving?" Danse began.

"Not yet, I have to let Hancock know what I'm doing with myself. He wanted to get me training this arm up, but I suppose traveling with you will work just as well." He told us.

Knowing Hancock, he'd probobly not be happy to see me.

 **Hancock**

Jason had been gone a while, cleaning up must have taken the toll on him, not to mention the still burning. To be honest I was sad to see it go, Jason was able to make a mean Jet blend.

Jet-tats, who would have thought that was even possible? Jason.

Then again, who would have thought hunting deathclaws was a good idea? Jason.

He was both smart and dumb as a bag of hammers. However, when he came back, he wasn't alone. At least he was cleaner than when he left. That red coat of his looked so much more red than it used to, not to mention the camoflauge being so much clearer.

Blood stains still stained the clothes though, must have been hard to scrub out with one hand.

David was stood close to him, not to mention MaCreedy, Piper and the brotherhood goon. I greeted each of them as they walked in. Jason looked like he hadn't had the best of times watching his life's work going up in flames, based solely on the goggles still covering his eyes.

"You should let the water out of those goggles kid, you'll lose your eyes too." I smiled at him.

He didn't look amused as he took the goggles and placed them above his head.

"Hancock, how're you doing?" David began.

David was an asshole when he wanted to be.

"Still waiting for an apology, after all you did fuck me over big." My smile faded.

"Hancock, I'm sorry. I killed that guy yeah, but it was crossfire and you know it." He apologied.

"2 weeks I've waited for that. Now what can I do for you?" I leaned back in the chair.

Jason looked around shiftily before he spoke up.

"These are the guys who picked me up when I had the... Well... Anyway, I owe these guys a favor, an extra gun seems better than anything else than I can provide. Doing this I can train up this arm." He explained, telling me that he'd pretty much made up his mind.

"Far be it from me to tell someone how to live their life. Go on kid." I smiled.

Jason walked around the desk and gave me a quick one armed hug and patted me on the back, I returned the guesture.

"Stay safe kid." I gave him the best advice I could give.

"You too." He patted me once more before letting go.

He walked out followed by the others who'd come with them.

 **David**

After that happened, we walked out of Hancock's office. Jason didn't seem to know what to do anymore, so he just waited around for me to make a suggestion.

"Jason, wanna trade some stuff?" Mac leaned into Jason.

Jason just looked at him, like he knew what he was looking for. He reached onto his shoulder and grabbed the leather sling to his rifle and gave it to Mac, he couldn't use it anymore anyway. Mac just looked at it as if he'd just been given the most epic thing he'd ever seen.

"Jase... I didn't mean." Mac began, but Jason knew him all to well.

"Fuck on out of it MacCreedy. I know you've had your eyes on that piece since I bagged that Sentry Bot. Not like I can use it anyway." Jason just smiled, looking at Mac.

"Isn't it time we moved out? We have more than enough to do for the Brotherhood." Danse reminded us.

So we began to move, out of Goodneighbour and on the open road again on the way to the Airport, but the problem was that rain was coming and Danse's power armor wasn't going to last long in it, so we decided to duck into an abandoned building. The rain came hard, definitally not the kind of weather that we needed, especially with Jason's arm.

It seemed like the weather wasn't going to let up anytime soon and we knew it, Jason set his pack down and set his coat on the counter of the bar we'd ducked into. Danse climbed out of his armor, Mac was still looking over the rifle, Piper began scribbling in the notebook and I decided to take a seat.

Didn't take long for Piper to start talking.

"Jase, didn't you say you had some stories?" She started as she pulled out a chair.

"Yeah, I've got some, but... You know some of them ain't worth talking about." He dodged the question.

"Why not? How about your childhood?" Piper began.

Everyone began to look interested now, Jase looked like a fish out of water. He sighed, pulled out a chair and sat down.

"Ok, when we met, did I say I'd been raised by slavers?" He asked.

"Might have done, why?" I asked.

"It's a cover, things happened in my childhood. See, my parents were raiders, but when I was about 5 they gave me my first hit of Jet. I started seeing things, then I ran away from them." He began.

Knowing that Jason had been raised by raiders was one thing, having jet at 5 was another.

"You ran off?" Mac asked.

"Had too, I was seeing all kinds of things, the people I was raised around turned into monsters. It's not the worst thing though, I was withing spitting distance of their place. I waited 2 days, they never came after me." Jason spoke, he was getting darker the more he spoke.

"So I walked away, and kept walking. My feet were bleeding, but that wan't the only thinggoing wrong. Super mutants found me." He started.

"Mutants?" Danse looked shocked.

"Yeah, unlike what the brotherhood tells people, not all mutants kill on sight. These were people who were infected by FEV, they retained their humanity and rationality, but there were some around that were like what you think of when you here mutant. Either way, we were near fort strong at the time, they taught me how to fight, survive, live." He continued talking about them.

This explained a few things, one was how Jason figured it would be a good idea to fight a deathclaw. Two, was how he managed to survive so long.

"When I was 8, we went hunting." Jason began.

"Wait, mutants are known for eating human flesh. Are you telling me you actually ate their food?" Danse began to look disgusted.

"I was a child, besides it wasn't always human meat. Anyway, we went hunting, a raider group came out of nowhere and massacared them. It was hard to watch, but I knew what I had to do, I fought them..."

Jason was getting visually upset from just talking about his childhood. He was tough though, he could keep going.

"It was my parents, they didn't even recognise me... So I killed them, only one mutant was left. He begged me to kill him so I did... Only knowing what the mutants taught me, I... I ate them, the raiders." Now I could really see the toll life had taken on him.

Piper was still scribbling away, Danse and Mac simply stared in a mix of disbelief and fear.

"Wasn't long before I found the brotherhood, they were fighting something and one of them got hurt bad. She was standing on a platform and got hit by a vertibird, not really knowing what I was doing I climbed down the bridge I was standing on and got close enough to her to start pulling rubble off of her. She took my stim stash, but she was on the way to recovery." He was continuing on and on, not really caring about Piper's ferocious scribbling.

"Proctor Ingram... So that's who you are. You're the canibal." Danse began to look more and more angry with him.

Cannibal seemed harsh, but Jason nodded all the same.

"The brotherhood took me in, helped me. Once I'd told them about the things that I'd done, they never looked at me the same again. They made me a Squire all the same, out of everyone I lived with they were the only ones to try and make my life hell... There was one night that I remember out of all of them, I was picked up in my sleep and carried somewhere tall. When I woke up I was locked in a control tower with a emblem tattooed in my arm." He was managing to keep his cool.

Sorrow was clearly turning into rage, Danse finally began to realise something. Jason had been treated terribly in his life, which was why his story was so colourful, nothing he was saying was lies, it was all truth. Piper wanted a story, she got one.

"You realise why they did that though." Danse began.

Jason snapped, he stood up, the chair went flying away.

"What reason is good enough to brand me a fucking cannibal? I was getting fixed!" Jason confronted Danse.

Danse squared up to Jason, I had to get in between them.

"Enough!" I shouted, keeping them together.

They didn't break eye contact, but Jason knew better. He backed down soon after.

"Do you know how long I stood on that fucking ledge? 5 hours, just like the raiders I waited for someone to come looking. No-one came." Jason just stared at Danse, pain in them.

"I put you on that bridge. You stood there, waiting and staring at the distance. I was there, watching you." Danse replied, now realising exactly who Jason was.

"Why didn't you do anything?" Jason was still as angry with Danse as ever.

"You jumped before I could do anything." Danse simply replied.

"Jumped?" Piper and Mac chimed.

"You could have said something, called out. Walked forward. Made a noise. Anything..." Jason simply stared at Danse.

His voice cracked slightly, but he was holding it up quite a bit.

"Jason. Come on, calm down." Mac had brought up the courage to walk over.

He put his hand on his chest and he guided Jason away from Danse. Jason took Mac's hand off of his chest.

"There's only one thing worse than the Brotherhood, that's the institute. Hell, it aint the only reason that I jumped, the fact that I was beginning to represent the people who made it their mission in life to kill the best familly that I ever had. That jump damn near killed me, but guess what? I didn't die. I crawled through dirt and muck to come across people walking. Gunners, they took pity on me and took me to Goodneighbour, Hancock talked to me for hours. There I became Jason. No longer the fucking Cannibal." Jason finished his story, turned and picked up his chair.

He didn't even sit down on it, instead he sat on the ground and leant against the bar. Still simmering with rage, however he seemed to be losing anger the minute he sat down. Nothing changed though, now we knew who Jason was, the things he did.

"Raiders, Supermutants, the brotherhood, Gunners and Ghouls... You're honestly saying that the Brotherhood was the worst place to live?" Danse seemed to try and understand, being in the brotherhood all your life accustums you to a few things, although I doubted he was even close to being in the same boat as Jason.

"Don't try and flip this around. Supermutants are known for calling each other brother, companionship. As far as I'm concerned that was the best place for him, if not that the ghouls." Mac stood up for Jason, not that he needed it.

 **1 hour later**

The rain kept going, heavier and heavier.

"It aint letting up is it?" Mac started, breaking the awkward silence.

He was looking towards Jason, he hadn't moved since the argument. Mac visibly began to worry, Mac went over to to him worried.

"He's asleep Mac, let him lie." I sighed, looking away from the rain.

"Losing that arm must have done something to him, a lot of energy lost from his body. It'll take weeks for him to get back on his feet." Piper chipped in, her head hitting the the wall as she leant her head back.

"If it wasn't for him we would be fine. Out there doing what we do best." Danse sighed.

"If it wasn't for your power armor we wouldn't be sat in here waiting for the rain to stop. God forbid it rusts." Jason spoke groggily.

We kept waiting until it actually became dark. The rain still hadn't let up, a lot of the commonwealth would have flooded, however it suddenly stopped just as Jason had lost his rag with the weather.

"Motherfucker stop!" He jumped up and yelled at the rain.

Stopped.

"Smooth... Real smooth." Piper joked.

"Finally, let's get back on the road. Let's be quick before the rain hits again." Danse spoke up.

 **So I'm having concerns about this story, I'm not sure about where to go with it. I've been writing Jason's thoughts down on paper within the story but he hasn't been doing that in these past two chapters. I think I'm going to skip traveling through each chapter, so that's why I'm haveing worries about this one, not sure if 'fast travelling' is cheating or not. Leave me a review or a PM for ideas that you'd like to see in the story and I'll see if I can work them into the story.**


	3. Chapter 3

**FO4 - C3**

 **Jason**

So the rain finally stopped, we set off and walked for another couple of hours through the dark. Something that I hated, the dark was the worst time to move, even the super mutants knew that. Whilst the human's slept, the monsters came out.

Of course, that also meant that a couple of human monsters wandered around in the dark looking for prey, a party of five seemed like an easy target but for one person it would be difficult to take us.

However we did reach the airport without any hassle at all, one soldier wasn't happy with us.

"You're late, days late. Maxon won't be happy." He grunted at us.

I kept my mouth shut, knowing full well that I wasn't accepted at the Airport, but I kept it shut. Everyone ignored him and moved on, but I stalled for a second, seeing the tower that I'd jumped off of when I was young. The tarp on the truck I'd landed on was still ripped and broken since I'd left, my eyes were stuck on it.

"Hey, coming?" Mac broke my trance.

"Yeah." I finally came along.

It took a while before we even found Maxon. Soldiers stared at me, looking on as I walked on. Eventually, I started believing that I was being recognised as the cannibal, it was later that I realised that it was my arm that was drawing attention. The sleeve being pinned up to keep the stump warm and dry must have been the biggest giveaway.

So finally we got into the main office of the Airport where Maxon was stood looking out across the airport through the window. I remembered Maxon when he was younger, he was a violent man, something that I didn't want to deal with only one arm. Quickly, I pulled my goggles over my eyes and my scarf over my mouth to hide my identity.

"Elder Maxon, I-" David began, but I began to panic.

Maxon was usually the one to deal with new recruits, it was no wonder I panicked. I saw his eyes lock on me, then his mouth move but all I could hear was the blood pumping in my ears and Maxon's muffled voice. Faces then began to appear in my vision each of them talking, I was too afraid to move, too scared to do anything, too worried to reply. Eventually, someone began to shake me which didn't help the sickness in my stomach.

 **Mac**

"Jason?" I asked, he clearly wasn't OK.

His eyes were closed and he was breathing pretty quickly. He was trying to control himself, I thought he was suppressing rage. Turned out, he was actually trying his best to keep himself standing. I figured this one out, as Jason lost control of his body and he collapsed onto his back.

It freaked me out, I doubted that it was normal. Piper freaked out, trying to grab Jason before he fell on his back and cracked his head against the hard floor.

"That's all too familiar. Paladin, what were you thinking to bring that cannibal back to this base?" Maxon turned on Danse.

I bit my tongue, knowing full well that if I spoke, David wouldn't be really trusted by the Brotherhood. I tried to help Jason by moving him into a better position and taking the cloth from around his neck to allow him to breathe.

"Mac, is he alright?" David asked.

I checked Jason's pulse, making sure that he was still living. Thankfully he was, but he was shaking slightly.

"Yeah, but I don't know about this shaking he's doing. It's freaking me out." I replied.

"It's alright sir, he's working with us. We can't let him out of our sight, the arm limits his strength you see." Danse explained to Maxon.

"Perhaps it's a good thing he happened by. Our scribes believe they've developed a new technology that allows us to use limbs from synths on humans. Proctor Ingram won't allow us anywhere near her with the tech, understandably so. I doubt he has such insecurities." Maxon began.

"Wouldn't it be better to ask him before you do it?" I pepped up.

"Yes, but there are more pressing matters to attend to." Maxon changed the subject.

 **Jason**

I woke up, the feeling of needles jabbing me in the stump was back and it wasn't pleasant. As I opened my eyes I saw the familiar sight of the ceiling of the Brotherhood sickbay, this was where I'd had my stomach pumped after they found out the things I did with the mutants.

Something far more horrifying than my life among mutants was what I found on my left. Metal, skeletal arm and hand. It didn't move, but the fact that it was there was enough to get me enraged.

"What the fuck?" Was all I could manage.

"Quite." A scribe was close by, looking at a monitor.

"So, they still hold a grudge? Can't let me live a human being, have to make me look like a fucking synth now?" I tried to get up, but I was attached to the slab by belts.

"Nothing of the sort, we had some new technology, then an opportunity arose. That's all this is." He brushed the whole thing off.

I wrestled against the belts more now, trying to break the bonds.

"You're lucky I've got friends to care for, or I'd rip your fucking legs off. Get me off of this thing." I was beginning to panic more and more as the time went on.

The scribe ignored the screens for a moment and walked over to me. He then clamped his hand over my mouth and nose, suffocating me.

"Listen to me, we have given you another limb. Be grateful the integration did not kill you as expected... A little joke, if we wanted to kill you it would be done. You see, the others may not remember you Jason, but I do." He explained before he let go of my mouth and nose.

I had to wrestle for air, but once I had my breath back I began speaking again.

"Yeah? Didn't work did it? Watch." I tried to move my arm.

It moved alright, it ripped the leather bonds away from me, why it worked now was a mystery. Yet, it surprised me enough.

"Alright, I'll admit that's different." I spoke.

Yeah, spoke. I was so shocked that I couldn't vocalise it.

The arm started moving just like the arm before it, the articulation was something else. The hand could rotate 360 degrees on the wrist somehow. I didn't have the slightest clue how this was possible, even as I was undoing the rest of the belts around my body I failed to comprehend it.

"How is this even possible?" I needed to ask, even though I wouldn't be able to understand it.

"Simple really, the nerve endings that were severed with your amputation were dead, but the actual strands were still alive and well. All we had to do was cut off the dead part and route them to a device that turns your brain's signals into electrical signals that react with a small computer, this computer routes this into information that the arm understands causing it to move." He explained.

Like I estimated, I understood none of it. I sat up in my bed, trying to realise what was happening. I couldn't figure it out, my body had accepted this piece of technology, a piece that the Brotherhood hated. Care to take a guess what that meant for me?

 **David**

After fighting through some of the nastiest ghouls I'd seen, we finally reached somewhere special.

A large

Empty

Room.

Nothing inside it, nada, couldn't see a thing of value.

"What. The. Fuck." I raged, kicking a dead ghoul after every growl.

"Blue, he doesn't deserve that." Piper spoke sarcastically as she came in behind me, wandering behind me.

"Piper, we've just waded through about 30 ghouls to see this. Nothing. All this for a core... What was the point?" I sighed, looking at the empty room.

"Finding this." Danse came around, holding what looked like a small arms crate.

Inside was supposedly some kind of core that was enough to power one of the biggest robots that was ever built in the old world. I didn't believe that it was going to be in such a small crate, but there you go. That's the kind of thing I had to accept, things worked, don't ask why or how they just work.

In my furious silence, we trudged out of the underground bunker and made our way back to the airport. I was pissed off, to say the least, but we had what they wanted and it was going to take us a while to get back.

Silence stood over us like a disapproving mother, everyone knowing that I wasn't nice to be around in the situation that we were in. After hours, we reached the Airport, Danse got us inside, making sure to express that we had the item. We then reached the ship, went up to the bridge and ended up in one of the tensest situations that we'd been in.

Several Brotherhood initiates were stood, their weapons pointing into the Maxon's office. They let us in to look inside, Jason was sat in a chair facing Maxon's desk. Something was wrong, they were talking as if they were old friends rather than enemies.

"I suppose that you aren't just going to let me take this off then?" Jason was smiling when I saw his face, that's what worried me.

"What's going on?" I asked. However, after realising what they were talking about, I recoiled in fear.

Jason had a synth arm attached to him.

"The Brotherhood has decided to implement a synth arm onto my stump." He spoke as though it was nothing, Jason seemed to be in some kind of trance as though he'd had a stim of Med-X again.

"Elder Maxon, why have you done this?" I asked, coming closer to Jason, looking at the arm in fear.

"Because a soldier needs arms and I did not feel like giving him power armour. As much as I hate the technology, there are ways that it can be applied to helping people. Perhaps the Institute had this in mind in the beginning." Maxon seemed to start monologuing.

"I'm sorry, I can't bite my tongue anymore. You've ruined Jason's life before, and now you do this? Why couldn't you wait until he'd woken up and asked him?" Mac spoke his mind.

"Bite your tongue mercenary. If I want your input I will ask for it." Maxon spat.

"I understand you think of me as a guinea pig, but speak to him like that again and I will rip this arm off and beat your ass to death with it." Jason threatened, showing the steel arm to them.

Maxon looked at Jason, steel in his eyes. Jason's eyes were venomous, staring at Maxon as though he would act on his threat on a seconds notice.

"I can't go to any city now without someone shooting at me and mistaking me for a synth." Jason's voice lowered slightly.

He stood up quickly, confronting Maxon as he did so.

"And more to the point-" He began, but was cut off as the synth arm detached itself from his arm.

It hit the floor with a loud _clunk_ which was almost masked by the sounds made by the power armour the others were wearing as they moved into position.

Jason didn't finish his sentence, instead, he just looked at the arm, back to his stump and then back at the arm. He picked it up in his hand and tossed it on Maxon's desk, simulating the previous clank.

"Hm... Well, no harm done then." Jason chuckled.

I let out a sigh of relief, it was a freak accident but it was a good thing. We had to go through cities every now and then, I didn't need Jason as a bullet magnet in the group.

"He said it was perfect." Maxon almost growled as he picked up the arm.

Suddenly, Maxon slammed the arm into the desk before grabbing Jason's coat and pulling him towards him.

"It must be you... Some mutation in you, knowing those mutants." Maxon growled lowly.

Jason reached into his coat, rage pasted on his face. Quickly I reached in and grabbed Jason's wrist before he could draw his revolver, doing this I accidentally pulled too hard and what was left of Jason's arm slipped through the sleeve. Maxon was left holding Jason's coat as I wrestled against Jason and his revolver.

Knowing that his whole arm was still in his coat sleeve, he kicked me back and pulled his arm through the sleeve in a rotation. He had pointed the barrel at Maxon's head, I'd only just managed to tackle Jason to the floor before he had a chance to pull the trigger.

"I'll kill you, you mother f-" Jason began to shout before I drew my own pistol and placed it against Jason's skull.

"I don't want to kill you Jason but you're going to get killed by one of them before you kill him." I warned him.

Jason looked at me, he knew I was genuine, I wasn't lying to him. Slowly, he holstered the revolver, showing me he had yielded. However, he wasn't done with me. When I'd placed mine back in its holster, he grabbed me around the throat and pulled me over so now he was on top of me, his grip strong, choking me out.

"I'll give you this one warning." He leant into me, his face inches from mine.

"Never-" He began, but once again didn't finish.

Mac had managed to get past the brotherhood to help me out, not that I'd needed it. Jason had one arm, I had two. With one hand I pulled Jason's hand away from me and with the other I grabbed him around the throat.

"You do as I say. Get it?" I warned.

Jason looked panicked, he had no way of escaping.

"Do you get it?" I asked again.

He struggled to speak or nod, but I knew what he was doing. I let him go and grabbed his revolver and both his pistols to stop him doing this again. Mac helped Jason up, giving this look of disdain as he did.

"I'm sorry Maxon, it's a hard topic for him." I tried to come up with an excuse for Jason's behaviour.

"His execution will be a _hard topic_ if this happens again. For the safety of you and your group, the next time you report to me, he stays outside the airport." Maxon threated.

"Yes." I sighed, looking at Jason.

 **20 minutes later.**

Maxon had given us a mission that would help the Brotherhood believe that Jason could be just as normal as a 'normal human being' as though he knew what that was. We left as quickly as we could after of course, Jason retrieved his coat. As soon as we left the airport, Jason hit me on the arm.

I looked at him.

"What?" I asked.

"You still have my guns." He sighed depressingly, barely keeping eye contact with me.

Reluctantly, I gave him his guns back. I began to walk away before I had an idea.

"Hang on, come here." I gestured for him to come closer.

The others watched as I awkwardly unclipped Jason's holsters and switched them around so Jason had to cross draw his pistols meaning that he didn't have trouble reaching his left pistol.

"There. That should help." I sighed patting him on the shoulder as I stood up.

Jason didn't know how to react to the strange action. He just froze, looking at me.

"Let's just kill this thing and... Finish this up." Jason sighed as he fiddled with his belt.

Piper, Danse, MacCreedy, Jason and I began our long hike to Jamacia Plain. Too far for a normal job, but seeing as Jason had put us in a position where we had almost no choice in the matter, it was fine.

In reality, it was about a 3-day walk there, doing this made me wish that at least one car was still working. Nevertheless, we made it to Bunker Hill before darkness came. Everyone had stayed relatively quiet, not even mentioning the incident between Maxon and Jason.

When we got through the gate, I looked at Jason who looked tired more than anything.

"Hey, boss. I need to have a word with Jason, take him away from the group for a while." Mac surprised me by speaking.

I decided against making a snide comment and instead just asked him a question.

"Why?" Simple, but it was all I needed to know.

"It's not good when he's quiet like that, he'll open up to me." Mac explained as he walked over to Jason and guided him away to a dark part of the town.

The others stuck with me as I went about the town, trying to come up with an explanation as to why it was 'bad' when Jason was quiet.

 **Jason**

Mac lead me into a dark part of bunker hill, but it was still illuminated enough that I could see what I was doing, a lifetime in Goodneighbour get's you used to the darkness.

"So what happened?" He asked.

"Maxon's scientists put a synth arm on me, it fell off and Maxon blamed the mutants that looked after me after I left the Raiders." I explained.

Mac just gave me this blank look.

"So you tried to kill him?" He asked.

"Those mutants were the best parents I had. They taught me what I needed to survive, not this stupid code of honour or whatever it is the brotherhood lives by." I sighed.

Mac put a hand on my shoulder, rubbing it slightly.

"You've been quiet again, something up?" He pressed.

"No." I lied.

"What? You think I'm going to tell tales? Come on." Mac chuckled.

It was no laughing matter. I'd been having flashes of the day the mutants were killed by the raiders. Watching the people I cared about most being gunned down by a group of psycho fuelled junkies wasn't something I forgot, but seeing them die after every step just made me furious.

"I'm fine." I lied again.

Mac sighed before pulling me into a hug.

"Stop lying Jason." A voice in my head rang out.

"I'll find out eventually Jason, is it because David threatened you?" Mac asked.

"No." I spoke.

I had to tell Mac the truth eventually.

"I saw them again." I sighed.

Mac knew what that meant, he knew that it meant deep shit for anyone who pissed me off enough, he knew that I was not to be messed around and that I needed to relax somehow.

When you give a kid enough Jet, their brain starts to break down slightly because they're young and more vulnerable to chems and their negative effects. When this happens, the kid is pretty much screwed for life. It's almost as if there's a little bit of Psycho floating around their nervous system, waiting for the opportunity.

"We'd best get you some rest then... Actually." Mac broke the hug.

He pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his coat and gave them back to me.

"David swiped them off your gear when you weren't looking, I swiped them back for you." He smiled.

"Not to mention the half bottle of whisky I've got if you're up for a drink." He finished.

"Thanks, Mac." I began smiling.

"Don't mention it, come on. There's a quiet place close by you'll like." Mac guided me through the town.

Through alleyways and somewhat crowded streets, Mac finally found what he was after. A spot near the river with a place for a fire if you had the materials and the water nearby. It was a nice spot, it was made even nicer with Mac there.

I set myself and my gear down, leaning against the railing whilst Mac did the same. With some difficulty, I managed to get one of the cigs out of the packet with my mouth, then light it after replacing the cigs with my lighter.

The rough taste of the two-century-old tobacco was refreshing to me, clearing my head for a while. It had been too long since I'd had a drag. I noticed Mac looking at me, a smile on his face.

"Want one?" I showed him the packet.

"Nah, could do with a haircut though." He chuckled.

"Yeah, and a bath." I joked.

Mac hit me in the arm as if I'd offended him somehow.

"You know I'm as clean as you are." He began.

"Really?" I chuckled.

I noticed that there was some wood left in the burner and I was sure I had some turpentine in the side pocket of my pack. Once I'd retrieved it, I dashed a bit of it on the burner and used my lighter to set it alight.

"It's weird you know, how you always have something to make a fire." Mac began whilst smiling.

"You don't go on long hauls do you?" I asked, genuinely interested.

Mac shook his head.

"Well, even when you're only going from say Beacon Hill to the Harbour, it's always good to have a flame source nearby. No-one wants hypothermia on top of radiation poisoning." I explained as I poked at the steadily burning flame.

"Ever had that?" Mac wondered.

"Had to learn eventually. Super Mutants don't get it, so I had to learn the hard way." I stopped poking at the flame, letting it burn.

"Same way you learned how to build a rifle like this one?" Mac patted my old rifle next to him as he asked.

I chuckled lightly, the story behind the rifle was a good one.

"I didn't build it from scratch Mac. What you're holding is a Remington 700 action and barrel, but I had to make the stock from scratch. I couldn't find a single piece of wood good enough or long enough to use." I began.

"Yeah, never easy to find wood, I mean look at these shacks." Mac joked sarcastically.

"One day I found the Remington factory in New York, inside there wasn't much left, but I did find the stock you're touching right now. What I didn't know was that there were other scavengers kicking around, I had to fight my way through about 20 of them on way out of New York alone, all for a stock." I finished never the less.

Mac looked at my revolver and my pistols, wondering about them. I reached into my shoulder holster and took out my revolver. A Smith and Wesson 629 revolver with a 2.5 inch barrel. Short and powerful, almost just like me.

"I killed the owner with it, this guy was pure evil, like scum of the earth." I began the story of the revolver.

"Greg Masterson, I remember people telling me about him. Drug dealer right?" Mac asked.

"Mac, _I_ was a drug dealer. I had morals though, never sell to kids. This guy did worse than sell to kids. He pimped them out, and he had a price on his head for months before I got to him. No-one would touch him, so I took it up. Did it in his house." I started explaining the origin of the revolver.

"You're the 'humping headsman'?" Mac spat out the whisky he had tried drinking.

Taken aback, I confronted Mac.

"Who came up with that?" I coughed.

"Nick Valentine." Mac chuckled.

Nick...

I didn't particularly like Nick and he never particularly liked me. I always figured that it was something to do with the things I did at the time, dealing chems and the like. Even when I tried to go straight for a while, he still looked down on me seeing as I killed my contracts rather than turning them into authorities. Greg was only one of many quarries I had over the years, but there was one where Nick and I had to work together to find someone from the Mojave. It didn't go well as the guy kept confusing me with someone else, even when I showed him with all the proof that I could find that I wasn't him, this guy was just adamant that I was this other guy.

Confusing stuff to say the least, but I let him live with a warning after I'd pumped him and his girlfriend for all the chems they were carrying. Nick didn't like that, even when I burned them in front of him. He always thought that I was wearing a mask, I was genuinely trying at the time though.

I guess having a deathclaw rip your arm off changes you.

"How is he?" I asked with a sigh.

"As good as a synth can do in Diamond city. Still pissed off at you." Mac put a hand on my thigh.

"I can figure, he's right though. I could have saved that kid." I frowned.

Because of me, a kid died. He was older than me at the time, but he was still a kid. Raiders had took him from his parents and tried to turn him into a chem mule. A shame I said the wrong words at the wrong time.

"The way he told me about it, it sounded like you'd grabbed a few chems for yourself." Mac made the same mistake I did.

"I was a fucking addict." I sighed, shoving the bottle of whisky back into his chest.

Mac took the bottle and put the cap back on it.

"You're still hurting arent you? You're aching for a fix." He pushed.

"No." I shook my head.

Mac knew the signs that a Junkie was getting pissed off. Too bad he'd forgotten them that night. He just kept pushing and wouldn't let up.

Then he did it.

"I kept something for you." He held up a syringe of Med-X.

The needle shone in the firelight, the liquid inside glistened. My eyes were affixed to it as Mac's natural shaking of the hand made the needle dance around. Almost as if he was taunting me, I wanted it. I wanted it bad.

All I could hear was my conscience telling me to take it. Take it and make the hurting stop, make the pain go away.

Suddenly, the needle began to move. It got ever closer to the vien in my stump, there was a screeching sound the moment the needle touched the cloth. Quickly I knocked the needle away from me, turning to look Mac in the eyes.

"W-what the fuck is wrong with you?" I shifted my weight, trying to get up.

"Hey..." Mac began as I got to my feet.

I grabbed my pack and hoisted it over my shoulder. Trying to get away as fast as I could.

"Kid, wait." Mac tried to get back up.

"Shut the fuck up!" I growled, pointing at him.

Mac looked at me, his eyes wide open as if I'd offended him.

"You know the shit I've been through, you see what's happened to me, you watched me burn down my stills, that was the end of the chems for me. Pain or no fucking pain, I don't need that shit anymore." I was angry enough to kill him.

"Jase, listen I figured maybe." He began, but I cut him off.

"Maybe what? You'd get me high and then what?" I accused him.

He looked defeated, as though he didn't know what he was supposed to do in that situation. To be honest, I felt guilty having such an outburst like that. To be offered drugs when he knew I was supposed to be cold turkey.

"I was just trying to help." He sighed.

"All that shit about it being bad for me. When you walked out on me because of it. Now you try and help me with the same shit you said would kill me?" I was spitting with anger at that point.

"Help yourself." I sighed.

I rustled through my coat for my cigarettes and lighter before lighting one up. As I walked away, Mac called after me, I ignored him. I retraced my steps through the alleyways and onto the marketplace. I quickly looked around for the group, moving through crowds of people just to find at least one of them.

Thankfully Danse's power armor was easy to spot. I made my way towards him, shaking as I did so. The slight exposure to the stuff had me on edge, I began to feel that I might as well have shot the Med-X up my arm, having the ghostly feeling of it running through my veins was driving me insane.

"Danse!" I called as I pushed past people.

He looked towards me as I got towards him. I got closer and closer until I could touch him.

"What's wrong? You look flustered.

"Nothing, an uh..." I began to come up with some lie that would work.

"Someone I used to have a relationship with spotted me, didn't want to talk to him." I lied, although I didn't lie.

Danse knew I was full of shit, but he couldn't prove it seeing as people did recognise me as we walked past the market and began to set up a small camp with a little fire to boot. We didn't have any shelter really, but the sky was clear so we had no fear of the rain. Not long after we'd set up, Mac had come back, sitting down with the rest of them and joining in with the conversation.

"You cooled off?" He asked.

"Uh uh." I didn't look at him.

"Still heated up about the arm, huh?" Piper asked.

"Get one of yours chewed up and see how you feel." I sighed at her.

"She means having the synth arm attached to you." David glared at me slightly.

I looked back at him, dead in the eye.

"Why am I here?" I asked, genuinely wondering.

"Feeling responsible for this?" I pressed as I lifted up my stump.

He looked at me shocked. As if I'd started walking on thin ice.

"No, I felt sorry for you. You had no-one to watch your back, with one arm you weren't much use to anyone." David just spoke as if it didn't mean anything.

My hand drifted to the pistol on my right.

"That's enough." Danse noticed the movement of my hand, I ignored him though.

"Not much use?" I shook with anger, ready to fill David full of lead and face the consequences.

"Kid, wait." Mac put his hand on my shoulder

I drew, pointing the gun at David.

"Condescending fuck." I growled.

I only managed to get one shot off before Danse hit me straight in the chest with his lazer rifle.


End file.
